Jakarta's overstretched airport has often been by-passed in favour of higher-capacity south-east Asian hubs

Jakarta's airport has opened a new terminal after years of operating at far above its passenger capacity.

Domestic flights for Indonesia's national carrier Garuda began operating from Soekarno-Hatta airport's steel and glass £430 million Terminal 3. Its international flights will shift to the new terminal next month.

Other airlines will gradually shift flights to the terminal and the airport company plans to start refurbishing two old terminals, built in 1984 and 1992, later this year.

The airport in the Indonesian capital will be able to handle 62 million passengers a year once the renovated terminals are fully operational again in early 2018. The two old terminals handled about 54 million passengers last year compared with their 38 million capacity.

Budi Karya Sumadi, Indonesia's transport minister and former president of the airport company, said "this terminal was built to change the image of the capital Jakarta".

Indonesia, an archipelago of more than 250 million people, is one of world's fastest growing air travel markets, but many international airlines bypass Jakarta in favour of modern, high-capacity airports at Bangkok, Singapore or Kuala Lumpur for their south-east Asian stopovers.

The airport operator and government hopes the new terminal will change that and a n electric train from the airport to the city is due to be completed in early 2017.